What was once straight rope
by BlackEyedGirl
Summary: Sam is well aware that knots weaken rope as, contrary to popular opinion, he can sail pretty well. It's just that sometimes you need the ties. Sam, Toby and Josh, pre through to post series.


**Title:** What was once straight rope  
**Fandom:** The West Wing  
**Characters:** Sam, Toby, Josh (possibly slashy implications)  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Length:** 1,500 words  
**Disclaimer:** All belongs to Sorkin and Wells.  
**Spoilers:** Timeline runs from post-series backwards to pre-series and out again.  
**Summary:** Sam is well aware that knots weaken rope - contrary to popular opinion, he can sail pretty well. It's just that sometimes you need the ties

* * *

**2008 - ****Clove Hitch  
**_pleasingly easy to tie and can be tied anywhere along a length of rope that is not under load. It has no other advantages - it may slip under load and, paradoxically, may also bind._

"You see - this is the part I don't get."

"Which part, Josh?" Sam asked.

"The part where you keep doing this."

Sam sighed. "I thought I changed the locks."

Josh's smile was wide and almost real. Familiar in the way that everything about Josh was to Sam. "Your landlady recognised me from the television."

Everything ached. His leg all the way down to the ankle that was encased in plaster, and his head where Josh's voice slipped in and rang out. Love is never having to explain why it's been so long.

"I'm still your guy?" Josh asked - what sounded like modesty being translated into something else.

"It's Toby, then you. But Toby's in New York."

- - -

**2008 - The Bowline  
**_It does not slip or bind. With no load it can be untied easily. It cannot, however, be tied or untied with a load on it._

He has seen this before. The weight that warped the threads of the universe down with it. Toby's absence was his fault in a way that he could not name; a twisted knot of guilt that bubbles up when he is not busy enough.

Filling his time was never a problem before, but now he finds himself taking long walks, and camping out in coffee shops until it gets dark. He doesn't know what Josh does anymore.

He will go sailing instead (_to the lonely sea and the sky_) because he has never done it with either of them.

- - -

**2002 - Rolling Hitch  
**_Secures a rope to another parallel rope. It is one of the few knots that can be tied or untied while there is a load and can be adjusted without it being untied. _

They stretch, he and Josh.

There is he and Josh and the real thing – how the world has never been too large to hold the threads that bind them together; perfection in a dream.

There is he and Josh and Bartlet, a memory always stained with water – rain and tears – but indelible, always.

And then there is them. He and Josh and CJ and Toby and Leo and Donna and… Just a part of a 'them', the best and the brightest either in truth or sarcasm. Sam prizes individuality in others more than he needs it in himself, and he does not especially mind being subsumed into "the spin boys", into "Senior Staff", or into the enemy.

He feels, sometimes, with the part of him that knows real men use numbers and not words, that he could write this out. Though his father would doubtless be less than impressed by the graph he draws in his mind of the ebbs and flows of he and Josh.

Josh is speed-dial one, though he calls more often than he is called, because there is love and masochism and Sam tries to remember the difference.

They stretch. The phone rings.

- - -

**2001 - Alpine Butterfly  
**_provides a secure loop in the middle of a piece of rope. Strain can be applied across either end to the loop or between the ends._

Yelling stopped being any use a long time ago. Sam raises his voice and his arms, and Toby bangs his fist on the desk, and still neither of them leaves.

As eyes of storms go, it isn't peaceful. But with Toby there, it doesn't feel like an ending. They are too angry for endings.

His breath gets caught in the back of his throat, and Toby looks like he would care if Sam choked to death, and these are the only two moments of truth since a sentence that began "eight years ago."

He laughs, and Toby smiles at him in the way that Sam has always assumed meant that he was puzzled, but amused.

The words come flooding back. Dreams and hopes and promises – only tarnished, not rotted away. _I love you¸ _he thinks, not for the first time, and gets out his pen.

"We can still win this," he says. Toby's nod, here in the middle of the world's ending, is enough to hold them firm.

- - -

**1990 - Round Turn and two half hitches  
**_Its great merit is that the initial turns take the load. While one hand holds the strain, the knot is then tied with the other._

He's only limping a little, but it's noticed. Josh Lyman – responsible for volunteer interns and other things Sam doesn't know – leans back to look at him properly.

"You get in a fight?" Josh asks.

"Excuse me? I mean, no, I didn't."

Josh nods. "Nah, you don't look the type."

This is, conversely, even more insulting. He is about to argue that actually, he has been in a bar fight before (although granted it was mostly a fight _with _the bar, wherein his face came off the worst) before he remembers that this guy can make or break him right now.

Josh, anyway, is smiling at him. "Sit down."

Sam looks around pointedly – the small room is packed with staff and interns, and there is not a chair to be found.

"Hey." Josh holds his hand close to the small of Sam's back, and steers. Sam's pretty sure they're not meant to be in here – this is where the expensive furniture and the good computers live.

Josh points him towards one chair, sits opposite him, and waits.

"Sailing," Sam says. "That's how I… I was sailing."

And now he knows Josh gets dimples when he laughs.

"Did you consider, maybe, not doing that any more?" Josh asks.

"No," he answers.

"No," Josh says, "You don't look like that type either."

- - -

**1997 – Double overhand stopper knot  
**_prevents the end of a rope passing through a block or pulley… can be used to add extra security to knots which might shake undone_

The shy redhead appears to be a new addition. Sam sniffs, and she brings him a cup of milky coffee and some Kleenex. He shoves them into his pocket as he's running out the door, towards one of the meetings he is eternally late for.

Three hours later, he is waiting for Toby Ziegler in their new favourite meeting place – a coffee shop near the Palace Theatre. 

Toby arrives, and Sam sniffs again. 

Toby frowns. "I told Ginger to fix that."

"I'm sorry?"

Toby waves his hand vaguely. "Kleenex, medicine, soup… whatever it is they recommend these days."

"'They'?"

"People. Women. I'd suggest whiskey, but I've seen no evidence that you drink. Just stop the heavy breathing. And find some Kleenex."

Sam slides something across the table. "I filled my notebook," he explains, as Toby looks at his ink-marked tissue in disbelief.

"And there was no more paper in the office?"

"I like a notebook. And my other one was in my pocket when I…"

"When you fell off your boat in truly clichéd fashion. Allow me to let you into a secret: when the water is cold enough to give you the flu, it's too cold for sailing. For you, anyway."

Toby searches in the inside pocket of his jacket. He pulls out a set of loose pages gathered with elastic, one battered notebook, one slightly less battered one, and one that is almost new. He pokes Sam's hand with the newest one, and begins to tear out the few pages with writing on them.

"Don't," Sam says.

Toby's smiles are something Sam has not yet learned to decipher, but he hands the book – unmolested – into Sam's keeping.

- - -

**2008 – Matthew Walker  
**_provides a secure stopper which cannot be untied without unravelling the rope_

The doorbell buzzed. Josh walked over to the wall and pressed the button. "Yeah?"

Sam could hear the almost-laugh even through the tinny speaker. "It's Toby, Josh. And you need to work on your doorman's impression."

Josh buzzed Toby up without speaking, and leant against the wall while they waited.

Toby had a bag with him – the weight of it pulling on his arm suggested it was more books than clothes. "Josh," he said, nodding.

He looked at Sam. "Feel like explaining?"

"Explaining what?"

"Calls that begin 'Do you know a Mr Sam Seaborn' seldom bode well."

"It was only-"

"Only what, Sam? A little concussion?"

"Yes."

Toby sighed, and Josh's frustrated laugh blended in with it to create that old sound of disappointment.

Sam laughed into it.

Josh and Toby exchanged a look, and Sam could almost hear the shrug. They held each other's gaze for a second, and Sam didn't know if it was the Tylenol, or if this really just made no sense.

Then they were moving – Josh towards the kitchen, and Toby towards the TV. Sam could smell coffee, and hear CNN. Toby wrapped both hands around Sam's cast, and lifted his ankle onto the table.

"Read this," he said, pulling a typed manuscript from his bag.

From the kitchen, Josh called, "Is that the book?"

Toby only nodded, not saying any more, but Sam grinned.

"Seriously, Sam," Josh said. He put the coffees sloppily onto the table, knocking the newspapers to the floor. "You really shouldn't keep doing this. Look at what happens!"

"Yeah," Sam said, "I know."

* * *

FIN 


End file.
